Not only is it Dayne Beams’ birthday, it represents the date of the club’s formation.
In the 121 years since its formation, Collingwood has played in 2396 VFL/AFL games. The club has recorded more wins than any other club (1460) and has claimed 15 premierships (as well as a VFA premiership in 1896).
The Magpies have played in 176 finals, winning 77, losing 94 and drawing 5. They have competed in 43 Grand Finals (including two draws), the most of any club in the competition.
The club has produced nine Brownlow Medallists, three Norm Smith Medallists and has had a player top the league’s goal kicking on 24 occasions.
Some of the most famous players in the league’s history made their name while wearing the black and white.
Legends the ilk of Dick Lee, Gordon and Syd Coventry, Harry and Albert Collier, Lou Richards, Murray Weideman, Des Tuddenham, Len Thompson, Peter Daicos, Darren Millane, Gavin Brown and Nathan Buckley amongst countless others have helped uphold the Magpies name for the last 121 years.
Of today’s team, several have already reached mid-career stardom.
Players such as Dane Swan, Scott Pendlebury and Alan Didak are likely to have their stories told by Collingwood fans for many years to come.
And as for Dayne Beams? The birthday boy (he is only 23) claimed his first Copeland Trophy after a stellar 2012 in which he played with the maturity of a player with more than just four years of senior experience.
In many ways, Beams represents the club’s bright future. He is experienced but still young, tough, skilful and uncompromising in his approach to getting the best out of himself. What’s more, considering his age, it appears that his best is still to come.
All Collingwood supporters will be wishing both Beams and the club a happy birthday and the best of luck for the years to come.
Let’s hope both Beams and his club receive their birthday presents on the last Saturday in September this year.
Below, collingwoodfc.com.au has surmised what took place on the night the Collingwood Football Club was formed on 12 February 1892.
The birth of the Collingwood Football Club was anything but glitzy.
The Magpies came into being on the evening of February 18, 1892. The suburb had been longing for a team that they could call their own, and was truly representative of its people.
While Collingwood in 2013 represents people from all walks of life the world over, the tribal nature of each town in Melbourne circa 1892 meant that the people of Collingwood required a distinct source of local pride.
A football club would provide just that.
Football folklore suggests that the Collingwood Football Club was formed at the Grace Darling Hotel in Smith Street, Collingwood.
While the Hotel had an important role in several related events, such as hosting the official disbanding of the Britannia Football Club in early 1892 and Collingwood’s first official committee meeting in March of the same year, the birth of the Magpies occurred at the Collingwood Town Hall.
An advertisement was published, proclaiming ‘Football! Football! Forward Collingwood!’ and declaring notice of a public meeting to be held at the Collingwood Town Hall on 12 February 1892.
On the night, local parliamentarian and the club’s first President W.D. Beazley made several bold statements aimed at rousing support for the new club.
“(The Collingwood Football Club) will draw immense crowds and be the cause of much money being spent in the district,” Beazley told the packed crowd.
“(Supporters) must be true to their colours, and not be dispirited if they at first lose matches, as they (the players) would require one or two seasons to lick them into first class football”.
The size of the crowd Beazley addressed was unprecedented. Despite the incredibly difficult financial times, which saw the country feel the brunt of an economic depression, the residents of Collingwood rallied behind their new football club.
Michael Roberts and Glenn McFarlane note in The Official Encyclopaedia of the Collingwood Football Club (2004) that the attendance, held in the lecture room at the Town Hall, was “so overwhelming that some of those present – including a few journalists eager to record the historic occasion – had to follow the proceedings at a distance, through an opened window”.
It wouldn’t be the last time the club’s popularity drew a capacity crowd.
While Beazley chaired the meeting, local parliamentarian John Hancock MP stirred the pot of excitement with several ambitious predictions about the fortunes of the Collingwood Football Club.
“(Collingwood) will be the premier team – for the very name Collingwood would strike terror into the hearts of opposition players.”
Hancock went on to set the challenge for the supporters, calling upon the residents to put off opposition players at all costs.
“If barracking would prevent an opposing player kicking for goal, (the barracker) would be there and give such unearthly shrieks as would terrify the kickist”.
Although Beazley was forced to leave the meeting early to liaise with a group of unemployed residents, the meeting was a profound success.
The Collingwood Football Club had been formed, and played its first practice match against the Clifton Hill juniors on the Darling Gardens (located off Hoddle St, north of Victoria Park) on 16 April 1892.
According to Michael Roberts in A Century of the Best (1992), the players elected their captain before the game. Bill Strickland was to be acknowledged as Collingwood’s inaugural captain.
Collingwood’s first official match in the VFA was played on 7 May 1902 against Carlton at Victoria Park. Over 16,000 people gathered to witness the Magpies make their debut against the club that would develop into their biggest rivals over the next century.
Although beaten, the Magpies acquitted themselves well, and even managed to share the gate takings. The club broke through for its first win against Williamstown several weeks later. Ironically, the two clubs would combine to field a Collingwood reserves team in the restructured second-tier VFL competition over 100 years later.
Late in 1892, Collingwood began to show signs of improvement winning two and drawing another of its last four matches for the season.
The victory over Carlton in the final round “sparked such jubilation at Victoria Park that an unsuspecting passer-by might have thought Collingwood had won the flag” according to Richard Stremski’s Kill for Collingwood (1986).
They may have shared the wooden spoon with Williamstown (three wins, fourteen losses, one draw and equal on goals for and against), but the club’s fortunes rose rapidly in the ensuring years, culminating in the 1896 premiership against South Melbourne in the first official Grand Final in the competition’s history.
Two more flags followed in the next seven years as the club developed into a powerhouse in the new VFL competition.
And to think that it all started on that raucous evening at the Collingwood Town Hall on 12 February 1892.
